Written By:
mickysavage - Date published:
7:22 am, July 14th, 2021 - 37 comments
Categories: crime, drugs, national, same old national -
Tags: simeon brown
Such is the paucity of talent in National’s ranks that its decidedly most junior member, Simeon Brown, has been making a few splashes recently.
This week, by National standards, he has done quite well. He managed to persuade the media that a new scandal was happening and it was a doozie. Not only was the Government wasting money on drug addicts, but he struck what he thought was gold. Because according to Simeon Government money was making its way into the Mongrel Mob’s coffers.
From his press release:
I will be introducing a private member’s bill to prevent future Government funding from being granted to organised crime units, National’s Police spokesperson Simeon Brown says.
“The Gang Funding Prohibition Bill will ensure that any person responsible for the expenditure of public money must take reasonable steps to ensure that the public money under their control is not used directly or indirectly for the purposes of making payment to gangs.
“This will likely seem self-evident to some and yes, it should be reasonable to expect that public officials and elected representatives would use their common sense and good judgement to not allocate public funds to gangs.
“This Labour Government has shown that we cannot simply expect that our public funds do not go to gangs, we will have to legislate it.
“Any New Zealander who needs drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation should be able to access such treatment. It is vital that rehabilitation is funded and effective. A gang which imports, makes, and deals drugs itself, is not an effective organisation for rehabilitation.
“There is no justification for the Government funding the Mongrel Mob at what works out to be $275,000 per participant when, as I understand it, Victim Support receives about $400 per person to support the victims that gang crime creates.
The reality is more complex. Marty Sharpe has this article in Stuff that provides the details but essentially:
This application jumped through more hoops than a professional hula hoop dancer. But yet Simeon saw a chance to stir up a bit of anti gang prejudice and waded in.
He shows a disturbing inability to do basic maths. He thought that the program would cost $275,000 per participant which it would if there were only ten participants in total. But there are ten participants per eight week course, of which there could be six a year or 24 over the four year period the funding relates to. So a total of 240 participants, and when you factor in accommodation costs, food, counselling and professional support, and the adminisitrative costs relating to review and management of the project you do get the feeling that not much would be left.
He also shows a vivid imagination. There is no proof that any of the funds will reach the Mongrel Mob, let alone all $2.75 million of it.
Simeon’s attempted smear is full of hyperbole and terribly short of fact based reality. Which is not unusual. But rather dispiriting. Can’t the opposition do better than this?
Nothing rare about it with that greasy little stain on my electorate.
This sounds like a very good program.
More please.
Thanks for the excellent background. Sadly National always take the divisive road, perhaps because when touting “Individual responsibility” they really mean “No community help”?
This seems a great initiative.
‘stir up a bit of anti gang prejudice’
Well to be fair the gangs do peddle the misery that is Meth in our communities. They’re involved in organized crime have plenty of illegal fire arms and there’s no sugar coating that.
Exactly.
There is absolutley nothing positive about criminal gangs. We should be helping people get out of them, or keeping our young people away from them in the first place.
But as for the gangs themselves, they are the lowest of the low, and have no good reason for exisitng.
If you aren’t “anti gang”, what the hell are you?
Realistic?
Woke?
I suppose you could be realistic. In the same way you can be realistic about murder, climate change, and poverty.
They all exisit, and will never go away.
But you can also be against all those things and and want to see the end of them.
‘…managed to persuade the media…’ more like here run with this and nationals media duely oblige as always.
Fact check…pfffft just publish
“Can’t the opposition do better than this?”
No – they are only interested in causing division and in dirty politics.
By some curious twist of fate, the words “Simeon” and “snivel” have exactly the same number of letters!
He was not off to a good start when his parents decided to name him Simeon after his evident ape-like qualities at birth.
So do 'Robert' and 'Guyton'! Coincidence?
Interesting to see the new ones jockeying for position. Erica Stanford on immigration, and Simeon on Laura Norder. Are there machinations happening? C’mon Tova, spill the beans!
NP LTP.
Nuance can be hard to digest properly and you’ll have to get past the reflexive ‘common sense’ reaction first, which is too much to ask of some lazy thinkers.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/125738996/police-support-275m-funding-of-mob-rehab-programme
BTW, Simeon Brown should have asked Paora Goldsmith to check his maths, like all National MPs. That’s what a good team would do.
Plus, Paora’s brown (we’re told).
https://twitter.com/nealejones/status/1414378384252039168
Simeon Brown’s attempted smear might be full of hyperbole and terribly short of fact based reality. Reality doesn’t matter though.
In a nutshell (excuse pun) what Brown is suggesting is that no money be spent on rehabilitating gangs or rehabilitating gang members with drug problems.Those can be the only conclusions to draw from his latest effort.
So what does he want? Surely it must mean he wants drug addled gang members to go free to cause mayhem and then be arrested and chucked in jail.
This isn’t about maths, it’s about images and impressions. Big tough man Simeon’s going after the gangs and is going to lock them all up. He was in the news recently about him being threatened. The biggest threats around Simeon Brown are to do with the threats to this country if some deceitful grandstanding dweeb like him gets into government.
Gang hierarchy worried about their soldiers using the product instead of selling it. Govt steps in to fix this problem.
I want this Labour govt to succeed but own goals dont help.
Meanwhile the dealing continues unabated. Families still have to carry the burden and women and children are often the victims. I would like to see some statistics of violence in the home in conjunction with drugs.
As for the politics of late, I think the experiment is called reset if I am not mistaken.
https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-opinion/resetting-politics-and-media
Reminds me of how Bennett axed a 100% successful programme for youth at risk run by a community group at Kawarau that cost $150,000 a year to run. It’s not in the interests of the right-wing to successfully address social problems because they need high crime, high unemployment, bad health stats etc so there’s something they can say they’ll fix. So if they fix something that’s one less thing they can say they stand for because they stand for nothing else except lining the pockets of the rich. Social problems give the right-wing sustenance.
Exactly Chris. More money for the likes of "meth testing homes" scams & for profit rehabs.
Bennett destroyed alot of good work when she abolished 'night classes' using self funded ones about golf as examples that national's media ran with …..funny that.
Cruelity personified as many aged folk needed them to acquire skills after their partners departed for cooking etc at the local high school or somewhere close
Lest we forget that is what National are all about.
The natz have always had a british empire upper class "born to rule" contempt for people who disagree with those values. It has caught up with them.
This move is dangerously close to playing ethnic superiority issues as politically viable.
This is the 21st century. The natz were formed in the 1930's. They have not moved with the times.
The ongoing long term consequences of covid are very problematic.
The ongoing long term consequences of climate change are very problematic.
The "free market" very unsound theorising has helped a very small number of people to amass impossibly useless amounts of personal wealth. (bezos, zuckerberg
Millions (world wide) die, starve, and needlessly suffer while roger douglas, richard prebble, jim bolger , ruth richardson et al enriched the already wealthy and increase poverty, ill health, despair.
The natz in nz worry about koha?
Whose side are they on?
This is a whanau led programme that seems to be working well.
The alternative rehab from a struggling public health system under further pandemic stress will never treat the whole person as successfully as this programme potentially can.
Well written MS.
Agree 100% peter sim.
[deleted “THis” from e-mail address]
Police Association disagrees.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/mongrel-mob-rehab-funding-likened-to-money-laundering-officers-angry-police-association.html
No, they don’t.
Did you read past the headline?
Seems pretty clear they do disagree
"The association wanted the money funnelled to legitimate addiction services in provincial New Zealand which were crying out for such help."
Well, your comment is more helpful because at least it contains something specific and of substance, almost. In contrast, the comment by Enough is Enough was an empty, hollow, and vacuous one that was so generic that it was useless for debate. But maybe that was the point of the comment?
If someone is interested in debating that article in that tabloid, go for it. There are a few quotes in it that I could set my teeth in!
Maybe you can explain to me what they mean by “legitimate addiction services” and why the current recipients apparently don’t qualify for that label and thus not for that funding, according to Cahill?
I could, but the article does that for me…..you could always read it before dismissing it
And there it goes again, I didn’t dismiss it, I dismissed the comment by Enough is Enough.
I’ve also read the article in Stuff; same story.
Are you ok, Pat? Lately, your comments have been different.
"I didn’t dismiss it,"
"No, they don’t.
Did you read past the headline?"
Im fine….just losing patience with bullshit
‘kay
The comment was so generic that it clearly opened up the debate, that you claimed it was useless for. Go figure
Your spray-and-walkaway contribution has been noted, thanks. BTW, the thread was started @ 15 by Pukahu Road. PS there was no debate as such. Have a nice day.
Oh well I guess that means National will have to forget about getting fund from those Instant Kiwis who have Triad links and donate to the NZ National Party.